Hammer something in over and over and over again, and eventually, it just might come true.

"How do we play?"

"Hard."

"How do we play?"

"Smart."

"What's Michigan?"

"Tough."

"We're going to be?"

"Champions."

"The Team. The Team. The Team."

For three years now, Michigan coach John Beilein has asked those questions to his players after every practice and every game. No matter what, without fail. If Michigan is huddling as a group, Beilein's breaking it with that sequence.

Every day, all season long, Michigan talks about a championship.

It's become a routine. The team gathers, Beilein barks out the questions, and his players spew out the answers as if they've heard the same thing more than they can remember.

Because they have.

If you repeat something long enough, maybe it'll happen.

Well, Beilein's boys have been saying those words for a long time now. But make no mistake, they didn't get to Tuesday night in Champaign, Ill. by just wishing.

Or chanting.

Michigan wrapped up its first outright regular season Big Ten title in nearly three decades Tuesday by practicing what it preaches.

They played hard: Keeping the pedal to the floor without relenting through the game's first 20 minutes, racking up 52 points before halftime against a team that hadn't allowed 50 in four straight games.

They played smart: Handing out 15 assists on 29 made field goals, never settling for a bad shot, driving and kicking to open shooters who rattled home 16 3-pointers on 23 attempts with relative ease.

They played tough: Out-rebounding the Illini 33-23 despite playing most of the game without senior captain Jordan Morgan, who was limited to seven minutes due to a tailbone bruise.

And, well, you know the last part by now.

When the smoke cleared from Michigan's 84-53 Illinois dump-trucking -- the worst loss the Illini have ever taken at the State Farm Center (formerly Assembly Hall) -- the Wolverines walked off the floor as champions.

The win puts a bow on an improbable Big Ten title run, the program's first outright crown since 1986, for a team that lost so much. Trey Burke was the national player of the year. Tim Hardaway Jr. was a first-round draft pick. Mitch McGary was a preseason All-American.

On Tuesday, though, in game 29, Burke and Hardaway were busy with their new NBA careers and McGary was still on the road to recovery from a back surgery that's limited him to eight games this season.

But for Beilein, Tuesday's victory was another notch in a three-year belt that stacks up with any stretch the program's ever seen.

Over the past three years, Beilein's program has gone 77-25 (39-14 in Big Ten play, and counting), has won two Big Ten championships, advanced to a Final Four and finished three possessions shy of a national title.

In that stretch, Michigan's had a national player of the year, a Big Ten player of the year and a league freshman of the year. And after another strong outing Tuesday, the Wolverines might add another league MVP trophy (Nik Stauskas) to the mantle, and Beilein will almost certainly close the season with a Big Ten Coach of the Year award.

In fact, Michigan is basically one missed layup against Indiana away from standing here with a Big Ten three-peat.

In 2007, Beilein inherited a program that hadn't advanced to an NCAA Tournament in a decade. One season later, that drought was over.

In 2011, Michigan picked itself up off the mat when it won 8 of 11 games to close the regular season and clinch a tournament bid that seemed completely out of reach two months prior.

In 2012, the Wolverines went to war with a freshman point guard few teams recruited, two senior captains (Zack Novak and Stu Douglass) no one wanted and finished the season with a league championshp.

In 2013, Michigan began the year with the program's highest expectations in two decades and ended it in the national championship game.

In 2014?

Well, in 2014, Michigan just kept on being Michigan.

Beilein's Wolverines have proven they weren't just a flash in the pan. This program wasn't just about Trey Burke. The improbable tournament run in 2011 wasn't a fluke. The title in 2012 wasn't lucky. The run last year wasn't an accident.

Three years ago, Beilein added the word "champions" to that huddle break because he thought his program was ready for it. Michigan expects to be the Big Ten champion these days, that's just the way it is. And if you can make it in the Big Ten, you can make it anywhere.